Kissed Christmas Cookies

Cookies are my absolute favorite dessert.  I love cookies.  Any kind of cookies.   I always have.  When I was a little girl one of my best friends’ mother used to bake cookies everyday.  The house always smelled so good, and it was always filled with love. Mrs. Nash would make all kinds of cookies, and everyday when we would come home from school, there would be a new variety of cookies waiting for us to gobble up and enjoy.  This is one of my favorite childhood memories.  Mrs. Nash was like my second mother.  My friend Kathy and I grew up together and are still  like family to this day, many, many years later, even though she still lives in California and I have been living in Colorado for almost 19 years.  Cookies always bring up images of love and family to me.  Maybe that’s why they are my favorite type of dessert.

The Holidays are here, and today we have our Christmas party and ornament exchange.  So I will keep this brief and short, since I still have a lot of things I need to prepare and do before all my guests arrive.  My cookie contribution for this year’s party is a fun, festive and colorful type of cookie.  I made chocolate cookies with colorful sprinkles and Hershey’s kisses.

Chocolate Kissed Christmas Cookies

1/2 cup shortening

1/2 cup softened butter (1 stick)

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed

1 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp baking soda

2 TBSP milk

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 cup cocoa powder

2 cups flour

Christmas colored nonparells

chocolate kisses, unwrapped

 

Combine all the dry ingredients together, mixing well, and set aside.

Mix the shortening, butter and sugars together until well blended, then add the egg, milk and vanilla.   Once all the wet ingredients are mixed together, add the dry ingredients 1/2 at a time, mixing well in between.  Once everything is mixed, wrap the dough in plastic wrap and let it set in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes before making the cookies.

Preheat the oven to 350* F

When the dough is ready, spoon out about 1 heaping tsp of dough and roll into a ball,  then roll the ball into the nonparells and coat the whole cookie.  Slightly press the dough out to flatten it and place on a non-greased cookie sheet.  Repeat until all the dough is used.

Bake the cookies for about 10-12 minutes or until the edges are firm.  Immediately after removing the cookies from the oven, place an unwrapped candy kiss in the center of the cookies, and slightly press it into the soft cookie.  I placed them back in the oven for about 1 more minute after I added the kisses to soften the chocolate kisses a bit.  Let cool, then remove from the baking sheet and cool completely on a wire rack.  After that, it’s cookie time!